Is Famine Coming To Zimbabwe?

Children in Zimbabwe will rely on foreign aid to survive.
(Photograph: Robin Hammond/The Guardian)

Zimbabwe On The Brink Of New Crisis As Food Runs Out
-- The Guardian

As President Mugabe and opposition MDC leaders wrangle over cabinet appointments, millions face starvation in a catastrophe created by economic chaos and the dramatic collapse of commercial farms.

Six months after the elections, Zimbabwe still lacks a functioning government and is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Following the worst wheat harvest since the independence war, bread has run out and sugar supplies are set to follow. USAid, the American government humanitarian agency, is warning that the country could run out of the maize, the staple food, by next month. Farming officials say the government's stated aim of producing maize on 500,000 hectares this season is unattainable.

'We are in serious trouble,' said Jabulani Gwaringa, of the Zimbabwe Farmers' Union (ZFU), which represents small-scale operators. 'There is no seed, fertiliser and crop chemicals on the market. Banks are not offering farmers any credit. In July we had produced about 25,000 metric tons of seed maize. We are down to 9,000 because farmers opted to eat their hybrid seed or sell it to millers.'

One European diplomat said: 'We are already hearing isolated reports of child deaths from hunger.' In the poorest provinces, such as Matabeleland North, subsistence farmers have begun bartering their livestock for maize: one cow buys six buckets of maize, while four live chickens or a goat buy one bucket.

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My Comment: Zimbabwe was once Africa's Bread Basket. Today .... after years of socialist policies coupled with outright theft of farms .... famine is just a few months away.